Cigarette Nation: Business, Health, and Canadian Smokers, 1930-1975 (Volume 2) (Intoxicating Histories)

In the 1950s, the causal link between smoking and lung cancer surfaced in medical journals and mainstream media. Yet the best years for the Canadian cigarette industry were still to come, as per capita cigarette consumption rose steadily in the 1960s and 1970s. In Cigarette Nation, Daniel Robinson examines the vibrant and contentious history of smoking to discover why Canadians continued to light up despite the publicized health risks. Highlighting the prolific marketing and advertising practices that helped make smoking a staple of everyday life, Robinson explores socio-cultural aspects of cigarette use from the 1930s to the 1950s and recounts the views and actions of tobacco executives, government officials, and Canadian smokers as they responded to mounting evidence that cigarette use was harmful. The persistence of smoking owes to such factors as product development, marketing and retailing innovation, public relations, sponsored science, and government inaction. Domestic and international tobacco firms worked to furnish Canadian smokers with hope and doubt: hope in the form of reassuring marketing, as seen with light and mild cigarette brands, and doubt by means of disinformation campaigns attacking medical research and press accounts that aligned cigarettes with serious disease. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, including thousands of industry records released during a landmark tobacco class-action trial in 2015, Cigarette Nation documents in rich detail the history of one of Canada's foremost public health issues.

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Robinson, Daniel J.

Addiction & Recovery

McGill-Queen's University Press

Corruption Of Time

Lulu Publishing

Politicians, government officials, and public relations officers lean heavily on polling when fashioning public policy. Proponents say this is for the best, arguing that surveys bring the views of citizens closer to civic officials. Critics decry polling's promotion of sycophantic politicians who pander to the whims of public sentiment, or, conversely, the use of surveys by special interest groups to thwart the majority will. Similar claims and criticisms were made during the early days of polling. When George Gallup began polling Americans in 1935, he heralded it as a bold step in popular democracy. The views of ordinary citizens could now be heard alongside those of organized interest groups. When brought to Canada in 1941, the Gallup Poll promised similar democratic rejuvenation. In actual practice, traditionally disadvantaged constituencies such as women, the poor, French Canadians, and African Americans were often heavily underrepresented in Gallup surveys. Preoccupied with election forecasting, Gallup pollsters undercounted social groups thought less likely or unable to vote, leading to a considerable gap between the polling results of the sampled polity and the opinions of the general public.Examining the origins and early years of public opinion polling in Canada, Robinson situates polling within the larger context of its forerunners – market research surveys and American opinion polling – and charts its growth until its first uses by political parties.

The Measure of Democracy: Polling, Market Research, and Public Life, 1930-1945 (Heritage)

Business & Money

Marketing & Sales

University of Toronto Press

Simkin Handbook of Therapeutic Monitoring

Taylor, William J.

Medical Books

Harvey Whitney Books

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Books by Robinson, Daniel J.